The Keepers #4

by Ted Sanders

  Joshua held his breath. Was it true? Were the Wardens going to let the Mothergates die? He looked desperately to Mr. Meister. A soft raspy sound drifted from the old man’s chest.

  He was laughing.

  “Fools,” Mr. Meister muttered, shaking his white head.

  Dr. Jericho’s grin faded. He turned to the old man. “Fools indeed,” the Mordin sneered. “Deny it, then. You Wardens are nothing more than jailhouse guards, the Mothergates your prisoners.”

  “I do not deny it, Ja’raka Sevlo,” Mr. Meister said. “But the Mothergates cannot be allowed to live.”

  “Says who?” Dr. Jericho insisted. “The Keeper of the Starlit Loom, Watcher of the Veil? Sil’falo Teneves, your precious high priestess?”

  “I’ve seen the signs with my own eyes,” said Mr. Meister. “The way we twist the Medium—”

  Dr. Jericho sprang at the old man, freezing Joshua’s heart. The Mordin reached the pulsing canopy of the golem in three mighty bounds and thrust a great finger into Mr. Meister’s face. “I do not twist the Medium, Tinker,” he snarled, his voice like a lion’s roar. “You are the abomination, not I.”

  Mr. Meister scarcely flinched. “If the Mothergates remain open, disaster will befall us all.”

  “What disaster?” Joshua asked. He realized he had scooped the Laithe out of the air, pressing it against his belly.

  Dr. Jericho straightened and stepped back. “Fairy tales,” he crooned, all honey and music again. He spun elegantly, his eyes dropping onto the Laithe. “Let us speak of the true disaster that awaits if the Wardens get their way. Have you yet been severed, Keeper?”

  Joshua shook his head. He’d seen Isabel sever other Keepers plenty of times, and it looked awful. He’d only been a Keeper for a couple of days, but already it was almost impossible to imagine losing the bond he had with the Laithe. Although severing was temporary, when you were severed long enough, you became dispossessed, the bond permanently broken. The Laithe would be lost to him forever.

  And honestly, he wasn’t sure he cared what came after that.

  “The Kesh’kiri can’t survive being severed for more than a few moments,” Dr. Jericho said. “Such is our dedication to our instruments.” He rolled his shoulders and bent his neck this way and that, stretching gruesomely. His joints crackled and popped. Joshua knew that Dr. Jericho’s Tan’ji was fused into the flesh between his shoulder blades, half buried in his spine the same way Aored was buried in Grooma’s chest. Raka, Dr. Jericho called it, a gleaming blue shaft that was the source of his powers as a Mordin. With it, Dr. Jericho could track down Tan’ji from miles away.

  “Yes, we Kesh’kiri will perish first,” Dr. Jericho continued, “but even you Tinkers won’t survive when the Mothergates fail. Your instruments will cease to function. The bond will break, and you will die. That is the true disaster.” He rolled his shoulders one last time, as if working out a kink, and then spread his arms. “But do not fear. The Mothergates can be saved. We can be saved. And I have figured out the way.”

  “How?” Joshua asked, and while he wasn’t sure what made him say it, he heard the desperate hope in his own voice.

  “It does not matter what you do. We cannot be saved,” said Mr. Meister.

  “Spoken like a true believer,” Dr. Jericho replied.

  Mr. Meister scoffed. “Keeping the Mothergates open does not fix the underlying danger. It only allows that danger to live on. But even if this weren’t true, forcing the Mothergates to stay open is beyond the talents of your Dorvala here.”

  Dr. Jericho glanced back at Grooma, who seemed too dull to even notice he was being talked about. “You make an excellent point,” he said. “And that is the goal, is it not? To find the three Mothergates, and ensure that they do not fail? Yet Grooma’s skills are limited, and Aored is among the weakest of the Loomdaughters.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, putting on a show, as if he did not know what to do.

  Mr. Meister said nothing. He glanced at Joshua, his face rigid. Apparently it was true—the Mothergates were dying, and the Wardens were letting it happen. They were fighting to let it happen. But why? What disaster would come if the Mothergates stayed open?

  “I spent the day exploring your Warren, you know,” said Dr. Jericho. “An astonishing place. So many treasures. And still so much still left to explore!” He shook his head sadly at Mr. Meister, clicking his tongue—tsk-tsk. “Such a shame you didn’t keep your stolen hoard better protected.”

  “There’s nothing you could have found in the Warren that can help you keep the Mothergates open,” Mr. Meister said. “Nothing. Whatever your foolish plans, you can’t succeed. Too much stands in your way, and you don’t have enough time.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Dr. Jericho, biting his thin lips as if feigning dismay. “Time is indeed short—less than a week, I am told.”

  Joshua went cold. Only a week before the Mothergates closed forever. He clung to the Laithe like a life preserver, too frightened to say anything, too bewildered to know what to believe.

  Dr. Jericho stood motionless for several seconds, seeming to consider Mr. Meister’s words. Then he stirred abruptly, uncoiling like a spring, throwing a fist resolutely into the air.

  “If our time is so short, let us begin at once!” he crowed, grinning. “Our foolish plan begins now. As your good friend Horace might say, what better time than the present to change the future?”

  He pointed at the two lazy Mordin near the entrance and barked a harsh command at them. They bowed and loped clumsily from the room. Grooma watched them dully, scratching with one dreadful hand at the flesh around Aored.

  Dr. Jericho held out his good arm and snapped his great fingers—a crack like a whip that split the air, painfully crisp.

  “Golm’ruun,” he demanded. The sharp-eyed Mordin hurried over to him, tugging the bloodred ring from his finger and placing it in Dr. Jericho’s hand. Dr. Jericho slipped it onto his own finger, turning back to face Mr. Meister.

  On the instant, the golem roared to life.

  The river of rock buried the old man, engulfing him as it plowed forward like a cloud-shaped train. It barreled right up to Dr. Jericho, dwarfing him, becoming a tornado that shook the ground, filling the air with thunder. Grooma straightened, his dull eyes widening. He slapped his huge hands over his tiny ears and took a step back.

  Gradually the golem began to slow and subside, and Mr. Meister emerged from its peak, spit out slowly by the golem until only the bottom half of his legs remained buried. Mr. Meister teetered and heaved for breath, held captive high overhead. A trickle of blood ran from the edge of his disheveled white hair down his wrinkled cheek. He clutched at the knee of his broken leg, grimacing.

  “Sticks and stones,” Dr. Jericho murmured, watching, hefting his own scarlet-clad arm. “Open your eyes, Taxonomer. Look at Grooma. Look at Aored.”

  Mr. Meister opened his eyes, gazing icily over Dr. Jericho’s head at the hulking Dorvala beyond.

  “I said Grooma’s skills are limited,” Dr. Jericho explained. “I did not say he had no skills. He specializes in matters of the flesh—Tanu made from living things.”

  “That is forbidden,” Mr. Meister rasped.

  Forbidden. Suddenly Joshua remembered Ethel, the hedge witch, and her Tan’ji Morla. Morla wasn’t an object, but an animal—a tortoise, alive and miserable, tied to Ethel the same way the Laithe was tied to Joshua. The memory made him sick. His mind reeled, filling with all sorts of horrible things Grooma might do to Mr. Meister, at Dr. Jericho’s command. His chest seized up.

  But instead, Dr. Jericho only laughed. “You have no grounds to tell me what is forbidden, Tinker. In my world, you yourself are forbidden.” He sighed, shaking his head. “And some of what you have done is not just forbidden, but unforgivable.” He clenched his fist and the golem rolled forward, bringing Mr. Meister down until he was face-to-face with the Mordin. Joshua managed to catch a breath.

  “I met your Dorvala,” Dr. Jericho purred. “Brian, Kee
per of Tunraden. He is powerful. I believe he could repair the Mothergates, if he put his mind to it. Such a shame we could not persuade him to aid us.”

  “Brian would never join you,” said Mr. Meister.

  Never, Joshua wanted to add, but he couldn’t find his voice.

  “No,” Dr. Jericho agreed. “Other than his wild excursion earlier this week, Brian marches tamely to the Wardens’ tune.” He leaned in closer still, hands behind his back. “That’s how you prefer your Dorvala, I believe. Housebroken. Obedient. Rebellious only in the mildest of ways.”

  Mr. Meister jerked his chin toward Grooma, standing mutely behind Dr. Jericho. “As do you, it seems.”

  “We would never have denied Grooma his right to Aored, no matter his nature. But you Wardens see things differently, don’t you? When it comes to Dorvala, only the tamest recruits will do.”

  Mr. Meister stiffened, but said nothing.

  “And no wonder!” Dr. Jericho continued. “Because of your outrageous belief that the Mothergates must not be allowed to survive, you could never risk recruiting a Dorvala who might disobey you. If a Keeper like our friend Ingrid defies you, it is a matter of little consequence. But if a Dorvala defies you, rejecting your stories of disaster, refusing to accept your insistence that she must die . . .” Dr. Jericho raised his eyebrows high, shaking his head ruefully. “She might repair the Mothergates to save herself. To save us all. And that is a risk you simply could not take.”

  Still Mr. Meister didn’t reply, his eyes locked on the Mordin’s.

  “In fact,” Dr. Jericho said, “hypothetically speaking, if a child came to you with the potential to become a Dorvala, you might reject her if she were too wild. If she were too fiercely independent to march in lockstep toward the doom you’ve devoted yourself to.”

  “The doom that awaits us all,” said Mr. Meister.

  “You make my point for me,” Dr. Jericho said smoothly. “With fears as strong as yours, what would you do if a child appeared on your doorstep, burning with the power to become Dorvala, but full of anger and defiance? If you had an unclaimed Loomdaughter in your collection, would you even let such a candidate lay eyes on it, lest she claim it? Wouldn’t you deny her the opportunity of the Find?” He leaned in close, peering into Mr. Meister’s face. “Or would you do something even worse?”

  Off to one side, the sharp-eyed Mordin shuffled slightly, furrowing his brow, apparently as confused as Joshua was. What was Dr. Jericho driving at?

  The golem shifted abruptly. Joshua jumped. The massive Tanu bottomed out and slid apart, catching Mr. Meister by an arm and a leg on each side and spreading itself slowly, as if it meant to rip the old man in two. Mr. Meister threw his head back, bellowing in pain.

  “Stop!” Joshua cried.

  Dr. Jericho ignored him. “I know what you did,” he said, leaning in closer than ever to Mr. Meister, whose face was a grimace of pain. The Mordin bared his teeth. “I found the kaitan.”

  Mr. Meister squeezed his eyes closed.

  Kaitan. Joshua had heard that word before. Something Brian had said to Isabel—that the kaitan, whatever it was, had wounded her. Isabel wasn’t a Keeper; she was a Tuner, a powerful one, able to manipulate the Medium in certain ways. Although she wasn’t Tan’ji, and had no instrument of her own, she could use special Tanu called harps to twist and bend the Medium, which was what gave her the power to sever and cleave. Horace’s mother Jessica was a Tuner too, but Isabel was far more powerful.

  Or at least she had been.

  And now all this talk of Dorvala, and rejecting their claims. The mysterious kaitan. Puzzle pieces began to slide sludgily together in Joshua’s mind.

  “Wait,” he said aloud, hardly aware he was speaking. “Wait.”

  “The stink of old evils still seeped from the machine,” said Dr. Jericho. “Too faint for me to identify, but one of my brothers had the necessary skills. From the residue of the kaitan, he put together a violent tale of woe. Two young girls, years ago, on the cusp of the Find. Placed into the kaitan together, along with the unseen instruments that had drawn them to you in the first place. And then . . .” He swept a flat hand through the air like a knife, so swiftly that it hissed. His tiny black eyes blazed with fury. “The kaitan ripped the power from the instruments that should have been Found, reducing them to useless rubble. Instead of being bound to the instruments they had come to claim, the girls were bound to each other, thick bands of the Medium flowing from one to the other and back again—only to be torn apart, moments later. The new bond between them was shredded, left to hang like tattered flesh, leaving the girls wounded forever. Leaving them Forsworn.”

  Joshua tried to swallow but had no spit. The Forsworn. That was what the Riven called Tuners like Isabel. Isabel, and Jessica—Horace’s mom. These were the girls Dr. Jericho was taking about.

  “Spare me your false sympathy,” Mr. Meister said stubbornly. “They were Tinkers like me, weren’t they? Abominations, you call us.”

  “We have always pitied the Forsworn,” Dr. Jericho said, and for once he sounded sincere. “It is cruel to cut the tongue from a fish, even if it has no right to speak. But your other crime was greater still.”

  “No deed is a crime, when it preserves the greater good,” said Mr. Meister. “The greater good by far.”

  “You sacrificed a Loomdaughter to the kaitan.”

  A Loomdaughter. Joshua understood now, didn’t want to understand. A sound slipped from his throat, sad and croaking.

  “I did,” Mr. Meister said, lifting his chin. He swung his head to look straight at Joshua, unblinking. “And I would do it again. Isabel had the claim to the Loomdaughter, the most potent of all—Vishkesh, the ninth.” Dr. Jericho inhaled greedily, but Mr. Meister barreled on, still gazing at Joshua. Joshua listened intently, drinking the words like poison. “When we tested Isabel—when Mrs. Hapsteade and I read the ink of the Vora in Isabel’s own hand—we saw the signs. Isabel had the affinity to become a powerful Dorvala. Powerful enough to rival even Sil’falo Teneves, perhaps even strong enough to make a claim on the Starlit Loom itself. But she was wild. Stubborn and furious, sneaky and arrogant. She thought only of herself, and that made her . . . unfit. We couldn’t risk that Isabel would undo everything we had worked for, once she mastered her powers and learned the truth. A truth she might not accept. We would not risk that she would find a way to force the Mothergates to stay open.”

  Dr. Jericho’s eyes seemed to glitter. He drew a deep breath through his nose, a dreadful, jubilant smile splitting his face. He stepped back, stretching to his full height. “The truth at last,” he said. Then he turned toward the dark corridor across the room. “Have you been listening, my dear?”

  Silence for a moment. Joshua thought his heart might pound its way into his belly. Then a voice, a girl’s voice, rang out thinly.

  “She has.”

  Mr. Meister whipped his head around. Joshua strained to see. Two small figures, humans, emerged from the darkness of the corridor into the murky brown light, flanked by the Mordin guards from before. One of the humans was thin, with dark blond hair—Ingrid, the former Warden turned traitor. At her side, a woman shuffled as if dazed. Even in the gloom, her wild red hair seemed to gleam, a knotted nest of dark fire.

  Isabel.

  The golem shifted again, dropping low. Almost gently, it deposited Mr. Meister onto the cold stone floor as Isabel approached. Unable to stand, the old man lay there, looking helpless.

  Joshua started toward them. The sharp-eyed Mordin stepped in front of him, blocking him with a massive hand. Isabel was powerless, anyone could see that. Her old harp, Miradel, had been destroyed—eaten whole by Dr. Jericho. The last Joshua had seen Isabel, she’d taken Jessica’s harp and was using it to cleave Mordin in the Warren—dispossessing them instantly, killing them, trying to buy enough time for the others to escape. But now even that weak harp was nowhere to be seen, and Isabel herself seemed . . .

  Lost. Like the shell of a body that couldn’t rem
ember its mind.

  Dr. Jericho reached out for her, placing an enormous hand across her shoulders and pulling her forward. “The truth is known,” he intoned. “Have you anything to say to this man?”

  Isabel lifted her head to look at Mr. Meister. Her face was a mask of sadness and confusion. Her usual rage was nowhere to be seen. “You stole from me,” she murmured. Her voice was like a ghost’s. “You ruined me.”

  “Some limbs must be lost,” Mr. Meister said, “so that the tree may be saved.”

  Isabel’s eyes widened, and she drew back. “You would do it again. You would do it a thousand times. You don’t even regret it.”

  “I lament it,” said Mr. Meister. And then he shook his head. “But I do not regret it.”

  Isabel shook a trembling fist at him, a spark of her old fire revealing itself at last. “I was meant to be a Maker,” she hissed.

  A ripple of disgust flickered across Dr. Jericho’s face, but he quickly smoothed it away. Joshua wasn’t sure anyone else had seen it—Isabel definitely hadn’t.

  “Certain wrongs cannot be righted, Forsworn,” the Mordin sang. “But there are gifts that can be given that might make amends. Gifts that will allow you to save your daughter—and so many others. Gifts that only Grooma can provide.”

  He guided Isabel over to Grooma. Slowly she lifted her face up along the length of the huge creature. Grooma peered down at her curiously, shifting, his sagging skin grating against itself like a rough hand against bark.

  “Che’th noldu?” Dr. Jericho asked Grooma. “Can it be done?”

  Grooma studied Isabel for a moment. Joshua knew he was seeing things the others couldn’t—Isabel’s wounds, the raw strands of the Medium torn apart after her ordeal in the kaitan. What must they look like? Joshua couldn’t help himself from picturing innards, spilling from Isabel’s belly.